


Count for Sorrow, Count for Joy

by deskclutter



Category: Claymore
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-22
Updated: 2010-06-22
Packaged: 2017-10-10 05:50:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,095
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/96272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/deskclutter/pseuds/deskclutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Deneve wavers between sorrow and joy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Count for Sorrow, Count for Joy

  
When she was young, her family had kept birds.

  
Her sister found them, a pair of nestlings on the ground.

She said, "They reminded me of you, Deneve. They couldn't do a thing by themselves."

Deneve had grabbed a pillow to smack her playfully.

But not before she added, "Luckily for everyone, I'm here."

  
There was a tree outside her bedroom window, and once upon a time there was a little girl who was forbidden to climb it. She climbed it anyway, and didn't fall.

Ants crawl along the rugged edges of bark, with the cool glare of the sun blocked by the green canopy reflecting dimly along their dark exoskeletons. A caterpillar creeps along the waxy sheen of a leaf in mincing creeps, training to be the graceful butterfly, her mother says. (Snobs, her sister whispers and they giggle.) And all around her the tree lives, its ancient heartbeat reflected in the hum of life around her.

"Deneve!" her mother shrieks in horror.

She didn't fall, but she was caught. Briefly, she wonders what it would be like to fly.

  
The rope slaps against the cobblestones. "Backwards!"

"Six!"

"For gold!"

"Five!"

"For silver!"

"Four!"

"For a boy!"

"Three!"

"For a girl!"

"Two!"

"For jo--Oof!" She tumbles to the ground.

Better luck next time. She takes a turn at the rope while the others clamour to be allowed their turn. Two for joy, two for joy, two for joy. We have two baby birds, and they are not alone.

  
They grew feathers, and appetites, and beautiful cooing voices. And then they were carried away by the wind on white wings.

Deneve watches from the ground and she is thinking two for joy, two for joy, two for joy.

Her sister laughs. "Isn't it great?"

Two for joy. "Yes," says Deneve.

  
This is what happened after:

She was carted off to the east to become a half-yoma, half-human warrior. She became a defensive type warrior. She didn't want to die.

This is what she doesn't tell Undine:

They say, "Here is the money" and you say "Someone will collect it, there's no point in paying if I die" and that is how things are. Behind your back you are called a witch, a monster, a halfbreed. That is also how things are. They say you are a silver-eyed slayer, and warn children to stay out of your way. They say you are terrifying and your abilities are unnatural and you are not to defile the holy places because you are tainted. This is how you, as a child, were brought up, and it is how everyone you know was brought up. You already knew they were only ever alone.

But they do not say that monsters have nightmares, so you didn't know until you became one.

  
I don't want to die. I don't want to die.

I, I, I.

Selfish. Terrible. Monstrous.

Two for joy and one for sorrow. Well, there's no one else here.

One for sorrow, sorrow, sorrow.

  
"Yo," says the other girl.

Deneve nods. They kill the yoma.

The other shoots a puzzled glance at Deneve's new reckless fighting style, but Deneve doesn't care. "We've done our job."

  
They meet again. "Yo," says the other.

Deneve nods.

"I'm Helen."

Helen is brash, loud. Helen is not content to let this be the same as the last mission and she can be so much trouble that Deneve doesn't care for.

"You got a name?"

"I'm Deneve."

  
"So."

"Something you wanted?"

"You fight like you want to live. But at the rate you're going, you're going to die before ya even start."

Deneve stands, makes to leave, but Helen zips in front of her to stop her. Deneve says, "If you wanted a fight, you should have said so from the start."

"No," Helen snaps.

"But you should know, I'm ranked 32, and you're 40, so you should make allowances for--"

Helen smashes her hand against the wall. "Answers are what I want!"

One for sorrow. Irritating, that's what Helen is.

Deneve sits down and tells her the story. "So you see, I really am a monster, just like everyone says."

Helen's eyes flash, and she opens her mouth. And chuckles. "Haha! Wow, can you be stupid."

"Excuse me?"

A sword is unsheathed. "You know what this is?"

"A challenge."

"Shut the hell up, I'm not done yet. This is a claymore. It is a huge fucking sword. It's our main weapon. It is damn important and no one can discount it when one of us begins to swing it.

"But!" She sends a glare at Deneve, who has opened her mouth to say something. "But. It doesn't feel. It doesn't think, 'well shit, I don't feel like being stuck into people' or 'I could get broken today'. It's just there."

"Look," Deneve says. "I appreciate you trying to help, but I. Am. A. Monster. My sister was killed in front of my eyes, violated and then eaten, and all I want to do is live--"

"Huh? Of course we want to stay alive! We are human! That's my point! Jeez, maybe I _should_ take you up on that fight, all this frustration's no good at all."

"Don't push your luck, number 40," says Deneve with wide, wide eyes after a long moment. Her voice is not shaking, she pretends.

Helen is brash and loud and lively. Helen is alive, and damn well proud of it. It is so annoying.

  
This is what happens next:

Those two sentences were not a complete turnover. But, because of those two sentences, she is alive today.

This is what she doesn't tell Undine:

Helen is like a tree, sucking up life and living and making people live. She breaks up the ground and lets things grow. Once upon a time, Deneve wondered what it was like to fly, and then Helen was her tree and they raced through the ranks to get to where they are now. Ignorant people think that Helen is the weaker because she's 22 to Deneve's 15, but Helen snorts and says, look at Clare, while Deneve just thinks that this is a very common story, it's just that no one else really realises it.

  
"Oi, oi," Helen says one morning. "What's that look on your face for?"

She says it like it is a demand, and it isn't spoilt by the affectionate smirk written all over her face.

"An old skipping rhyme," Deneve says.

Helen mulls over that for a moment. "Good memory?"

"Something like that." One for sorrow, two for joy.


End file.
